Name: Vivek KempRole at Fast Company: Senior Video ProducerTwitter: thekempvTitillating fact: In high school, Vivek worked as a balloon animal artist at Hometown Buffet ("The best buffet in America") in Englewood, Colorado. However, he never learned how to blow the balloons up, so if you want him to make you a balloon animal, he'll need a pump. "I'm the worst," he says.

Things he's loving:

1. ΩΜΑ
I stole my father’s record player when I went to college. It was sitting in a closet in his office, right next to a crate of LPs—The Grateful Dead, Simon and Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac. The player was a portal to my dad’s former years, and the LPs were his soundtrack. And they were going to be mine too.

After I graduated, the record player broke (payback for stealing the thing, I guess). The LPs were put back into a crate. Now, I want to revisit my dad’s tunes. I’ve been searching players online and I came across ΩΜΑ. Unlike an iPhone dock or even a record player, ΩΜΑ’s gear is a throwback to the era of gramophones and Thomas Edison’s Diamond Disc Players. They are not subtle or small—more Steampunk than traditional. But they are, like those crated LPs, sonic time machines and I want to be transported.

2. Mishcon de Reya's video about Business Shapers
I’m a video troll. Luckily, I’m also a video producer, so when I’m caught zoning out to the latest thing on Vimeo (by far my favorite place to troll) I can say it's all in the name of research.

One of my favorite videos is about creativity, narrated by Sir John Hegarty, creative director & founder of BBH. "Do interesting things and interesting things will happen," that’s Hegarty’s dictum. I repeat that sentence to myself once a day. I’m not sure it’s made me more creative, but hell if it hasn’t gotten me into some amazing adventures.

3. Cat Beards
There’s no good reason to hold a cat to your face and pretend it’s a beard, but that hasn’t stopped folks from doing it. I’m not sure this is a recommendation as much as it is an appeal to stop this blatant assault against those of us who have real facial hair. That said, my mom has three black and white cats that would suit my face perfectly.